HELP!: A Sceptical Guide to Happiness, Productivity and the Self-Help Industry from the Sunday Times bestseller

What if the problem with self-help is not that none of it works, but that too much of it promises far more than it can deliver?

Oliver Burkeman spent five years investigating the happiness industry, sorting useful ideas from grand claims, fashionable nonsense and advice that collapses on contact with ordinary life. He explores stress, procrastination, creativity, time management, attention, habits, relationships and the pursuit of happiness itself.

Psychological research and philosophical ideas sit alongside the gurus and productivity systems that promise reinvention. Again and again, Burkeman arrives at a less glamorous conclusion: mastery can matter more than finding a passion, acceptance can be more effective than forced optimism, and good enough is often a healthier target than perfect.

Wry, sceptical and practical, HELP! is for readers who want to get a little more done and feel a little better without turning their lives into permanent improvement projects.

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